1. Axial Age (roughly 700 B.C.E. through 100 C.E.) TK
a. Armesto states that this image suits this period of intellectual growth for three reasons.
1. The areas in which the thought of the sages and their schools stretches across Eurasia in an axislike pattern, through regions that influenced each other, more or less.
2. The thoughts of the period have remained central to so much later thought all over the world.
3. Why did this period of concentrated thought occur at all?
b. The significance of the term axial age is that it gives us an idea of where the major thinking occured (axislike image) and how important it was (and is) for many different philosophies. 2. Zoroaster/Zoroastrianism TK
1. Zoroaster founds religion known as Zoroastrianism between the late seventh and early sixth centuries B.C.E.
a. Main gods are Ahura Mazda and Ahriman
1. Ahura Mazda was the good god, present in light and fire
2. Ahriman was the bad god, present in night and darkness
b. Dualist philosophy- idea of good versus evil, right versus wrong (deals in absolutes, no grey area) 3. Brahmanism (Hinduism) TK
1. Originates from the Upanishads around 1500 B.C.E.
a. Belief in Brahman, the essence of the universe 4. Jainism/Vardhamana Jnatrputra TK
1. Vardhamana Jnatrputra (the Mahariva) founds Jainism in the sixth to early fifth century B.C.E.
2. Believe in practicing asceticism in order to cleanse the soul of evil (we’re talking about extreme asceticism here)
a. So extreme to the point that a religious Jainist should not accept anything unless it is freely given (even food) 5. Buddhism TK
1. Founded by Gautama Siddharta (the Buddha) in the mid-500’s to early 400’s B.C.E.
2. Believe in escaping from desire- the cause of all unhappiness
a. Continue to be reborn until achieving a state of ‘nirvana,’ meaning extinction of the flame (the flame being desire)
1. This is achieved through prayer, meditation, and unselfish behavior
b. People who achieve this are called Buddhas, the examples of perfection that Buddhists strive for
6. Daoism - AL
- Laozi, the founder of Daoism, lived probably around 300 B.C.E. in China. (Pg. 165)
- Doaists probably began practical science – observation, description, classification, and experiment - in China. Evidence to support this claim is that Doaists used a word for temple that is translated to mean watchtower. A watchtower is a platform where they observed the natural world and launched naturalistic explanations of it phenomena. Daoism also believes that nature needs to be either tamed or dominated like a beast or a foe. (Pg. 178-179) 7. Jewish People – AL
- Levant, southwest Asia’s Mediterranean costal region, was inhabited by Jews and was a war zone. (Pg. 166)
- There are challenges of using biblical and archaeological sources because the biblical accounts and Jewish writings do not always match with archaeological investigations, so none of the accounts can be confirmed as 100% true or false. (Pg. 166)
- The kingdoms of Judah and Israel from around 700 B.C.E. fought each other and fell because of the wars of neighboring empires. (Pg. 166)
- Many were deported and forced to migrate to Babylon after Jerusalem fell in the 580s B.C.E. Those deported felt defeat and loss. (pg. 166)
- From 600-400 B.C.E. the Jews wrote the Old/Hebrew Testament because they were inspired to reevaluate their relationship with God. (Pg. 166)
- Through a covenant, God promised deliverance, if not in this life, then in the afterlife, or at the end of history, or, at best, in a remoter future, as a reward for present fidelity, or following “the Law.” (Pg. 166) 8. Christianity – AL
- Jesus, a Jew who died around 33 C.E., was a great Jewish Rabbi with a radical message. (Pg. 166-167)
- There are challenges of reconstructing Jesus’ life because not all accounts written during his time match archaeological findings. Also, the gospels in the bible do not all tell the same story of Jesus. In addition, there are gaps in Jesus’ life in written records that make it hard to reconstruct his life.
- Jesus’ followers gave him the name of Christ, resembling the meaning of Messiah, which means “the anointed”. “The anointed” designated the king the Jews hoped for at the end of history to bring heaven to earth. (Pg. 167)
- Jesus taught to love one another and he did so by welcoming prostitutes, tax collectors, “sinners,” people from Samaria, and the weak. (Pg. 174)
- Roman authorities did not agree with Jesus’ thought that to love one another was the only important law, and as a result they put him to death. (Pg. 174) 9. Greek Philosophy and Belief Systems – AL
- Aristotle was a physician’s son from northern Greece in 300 B.C.E. who left a body of work on science, logic, and politics. (Pg. 167) Aristotle believed in common sense and reasoning, we owe our ability to think to him. (Pg. 177)
- Plato, Aristotle’s teacher, lived in 300 B.C.E. (Pg. 167) He believed that our senses deceive through his allegory of the cave, The Republic, because the people in the cave could only see their shadows, he wondered how could they see out of the cave (to form mathematics, reason, and science). (Pg. 175)
- Plato believed that political power should be concentrated in self-electing class of rulers, also known as Guardians who had intellectual superiority. Plato said, “There will be no end to the troubles of state, or indeed, of humanity until philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers” which enforces his belief for intellectual superiority in positions of leadership. (Pg. 172) 10. Axial Age Creation Beliefs – AL
- Before the axial age, people did not focus on creation, but how the universe can to be the way it is. However, once the axial age began, people embraced the idea of a creator who always existed but made everything out of nothing. (Pg. 168-169) 11. Axial Age Concepts of Monotheism SR
The idea of a unique God. Monotheism religions include Judaism and Christianity. 12. Axial Age Concept of Divine Love SR
Making God’s love embrace all humans. Creation became an act of love consistent with God’s nature. This raised the question “Why does a loving God permit evil and suffering?” 13. Legalism/Legalists SR
-Political Pessimism: For pessimists, the way to overcome human dificiencies was to strengthen the state. The key idea was that political power should be concentrated in a self-electing class of philosopher rulers called Gaurdians. The belief that ethics should override obedience to the law. What the law said was really irrelevant, all that really mattered was that it should be obeyed.
-Political Optimism: They thought that human nature was essentially good, and that to serve rulers or support society was an inescapable duty, it was not the purpose of life. 14. Confucianism/Confucious and Mencius SR
Confucianism/Confucius and Mencius: Confucius deterred followers from thinking “about the dead until you know the living” and defined wisdom as aloof respect for gods and demons. Confusions professed interests in human affairs and indifference to the rest of nature. 15. Aristotle/Syllogisms SR
Syllogisms: Aristotle said that we can break valid arguments down into phases, called syllogisms, in which we can infer a necessary conclusion from 2 premises that prior demonstration or agreement have established to be true. 16. Pythagoras SR
The idea that numbers are real. He said that musical harmonies can be expressed as arithmetical ratios and that consistent ratios characterize the lengths of the sides of right-angle triangles. 17. Thracians- Thrace was located in the Aegean Sea, northeast of Greece. they wrote on odd materials such as mushrooms. Their writing has been indecipherable even though it was written in Greek letters. They practiced rites of fire. Horseback hero/god- his figure dominated Thracian art, in many examples he is performing heroic/ dangerous tasks: wrestling three-headed monsters, leading a bear, and in the midst of a battle surrounded by severed heads. These figures were saved because Christians would recycle them and use them in their building materials for churches Sitalkes- (429 BCE) Thracian King who invaded Macedonia with an army of 150,000. There he built a palace-city 21.5 acres in size. Made from mostly mud-brick and stucco. He marked a new era in which Thracian states struggled with their stronger neighbors. 18.Illyrians and Garamantes- Located on opposite sides of the central Mediterranean. Illyrians- (500 BCE) Buried their rulers and elites with hoards of gold and silver and sacrifices of oxen and wild boar. An urn found in modern-day Slovenia is illustrated with images of life in an Illyrian court. Parading warriors, deer hunters, dignitaries being fed by long-haired women. Garamantes- modern-day North African region of Lybia called Fezzan. They dug irrigation tunnels under the Sahara desert, their 14 cities were surrounded by desert. They grew wheat and barley. Called by the Greeks, a slave-trading elite, driving four-horse chariots. their faces depicted by the Romans as ritually tattooed and scarred with ostrich-plume helmets.
19.Etruscans- Etruria was located on the northern shore of the Mediterranean stretching across central Italy. Their soil had to be plowed nine times to be workable, which caused for a need of iron mining and the most cutting-edge smelting technology. They drained malarial marshes. The Etruscans were looked down upon by the Greek and Romans because they believed that the Etruscans took too much time on their appearance and wantonly displaying their bodies. Ceare- Etruscan city, covered 150 acres and accommodated 20,000 inhabitants. Their tombs resembled the layout of their houses, as if to prepare the deceased for the afterlife. Warriors buried with chariots and weapons, and the wealthy with jewels and precious metals. Gender roles and women’s rights- Women were allowed to go out to games, and dine with men, in Greek and Roman societies the only women who did that were prostitutes. Elite women were also thought to be literate due to writing on combs and mirrors. Chapter 6 Outline
(1) The Thoughts of the Axial Age- EE
a) Helps to compare and contrast- thematic approach
II) Religious Thinking
a) Creation
i) The idea of nothing enabled thinkers to understand the order of nature in a new way.
ii) Before the Axial Age- creation narratives- telling of how the world came to be.
iii) Leucippus- devised the atomic theory
(1) Plato’s god did not start from nothing just rearranged what was already there.
iv) Jews= most challenging account of creation
(1) Idea that the creator has always been there
(2) Yet created the world out of nothing
b) Monotheism
i) Idea of a unique god, who monopolizes power over nature
ii) Most powerful formula developed= Jews
(1) “Yahweh” is the one G-d. (Umm… we don’t actually call our god Yahweh, to us the one and only G-d is Adonai or Hashem.)
(2) Jews were not obligated to impose Yahweh on others.
iii) Muhammad studied Judaism and Christianity and incorporated the Jewish understanding of G-d in Islam.
c) Divine Love
i) Aristotle sees a god figure as a perfect being
ii) Brahmanism is illusory
iii) Greek is divine
iv) Confucianism is neutral
v) Zoroastrianism is evil
vi) Christianity is good
vii) Buddhism is transient
III) New Political Thinking
i) Believed that the humankind was originally a grim swamp of violence-Xunzi
b) Political Pessimism
i) To overcome human deficiencies was to strengthen the state.
ii) Political power should be concentrated in self-electing class of philosopher-rulers called Guardians.
iii) Chinese counterparts exceeded the severity of Plato’s thinking
iv) Legalist- made virtues
c) Political Optimism
i) Human nature was good
ii) Political doctrines of Confucianism, which demanded that the state should liberate subjects to fulfill their potential.
iii) Greek sages-entrusted citizens with a voice in affairs of state, no matter education states.
iv) Serving was a duty
v) Jesus believed in loving one another
IV) Challenging Illusion
a) There was a struggle against illusion
b) People turn to skepticism- mistrust of all human capacity to achieve more than practical happiness.
V) Math
a) Indian sages discover numbers- in a genuinely limitless universe
b) Jain see how difficult it is to attain the infinite
c) Saw pi as 22/7
d) Golden Number= 1.618
e) Greece= Pythagoras- harmonies can be expressed as arithmetical ratios; and that consistent ratios characterize the lengths of the sides of right angled triangles.
I. Science- CH
A. Axial age led to science
B. Lu Shi Chong Qiu of third century B.C.E. discovered how to make soft metals harder, make liquids dryer, and how to make poisonous herbs into medicines
C. Science was sacred and medicine was “magical”
D. Shen Xu show first sign of clear evidence of shift of thinking; taught that ghosts were just the products of the fears and guilt of those who see them
E. Superstition: Inaminate substances have feelings and wills, inhabit all matter, and natural world is responsive to human sin and goodness
F. “Natural” causes displaced magic
G. Greeks believed in the supernatural
H. Late sixth century B.C.E. Greeks began to use observed data to speculate about the material nature of the universe, rather than magic
I. Other Greek thinkers such as: Aristotle, Archimedes, and Eratosthenes came up with reasons why events happen and how our earth is calculated
J. Daoism- reputation for magical mumbo-jumbo because priests practice strange ceremonies. Also encouraged the beginning of scientific practice.
II. Medicine
A. “Demons” are usually associated with any type of illness
B. Charms and drugs were used to cure “demons” inside the body
C. Diet was also a big part in the curings of diseases in the Greek Hippocratics text
III. Skepticism
A. Suspicion that the world is purposeless
B. World is merely but a random event
C. People are like fleas: when they buzz in your ear you do not hear them, God cannot hear humans
D. Stoicism practiced that nature is morally neutral- only human acts are good or evil
IV. Structures of the Axial Age
A. Professional intellectuals sold their services to people in search of happiness
B. Some professionals sought the patronage of rulers or positions as political advisors
C. A third category consisted of prophets or holy men who emerged from ascetic lives with inspired messages for society
D. A fourth was composed of charismatic leaders with visions to share with and impose on other peoples
E. Most sages and thinkers were a part of a network. They dd not sit an isolation although many of them preferred it.
F. Networks promoted innovation and competition towards being greater and fertilizing more ideas
G. Masters and pupils contributed to revisions from generation to generation. Made new outlooks and perspectives
V. The Reach of the Sages
A. Trade and Colonization took axial-age thinking even further
B. We, today, still follow axial-age sages in religion and the same logic and science they used many centuries ago
Chapter 6 Chronology
Pages 159-170- MA
500 B.C.E. to 33 C.E. (beginning of Christian Era)
Axial Age
ca. 700-500 B.C.E.
Jewish sages spread Judaism throughout the Mediterranean Levant
ca. 600 B.C.E.
Zoroaster spreads his ideas through the area that is now Iran; intro. a dualist system which dominates thinking in that area for 1,000 years
around the middle of the millennium
in India texts of the Veda multiplies; teachings of Brahman from early Upanishads began to be written down
ca. 580
massive forced migration of Jews from Jerusalem to Babylon
ca. 560 B.C.E.
Gautama Siddharta(Buddha) founds Buddhism
ca. 559 B.C.E.
Vardhamana Jnatrputra founds Jainism
ca. 300 B.C.E.
Laozi founds Daoism
ca. 33 C.E.
Jesus establishes ideas that later form the basis for Christian religion
ca. 600 C.E.
Muhammad founds Islam
Pages 171-180- PB
fourth century B.C.E.
Chinese Legalists (basic principle of meaningless “goodness”
fourth century B.C.E.
Aristotle proposes that the monarchial system of government is best in practice, but the aristocratic system is most effective in practice
mid-fourth century B.C.E.
Aristotle develops hierarchy of living souls, in which the human soul is superior to those of plants and animals
late-fifth century B.C.E.
A secular school known as Hippocratics tried to monopolize the medical profession, at the expense of rival healers who were attached to the temples
sixth century B.C.E.
Professional medical training and literature emerge, evidence of surgery has also been found
late-sixth century B.C.E.
Nature worship was beginning to encourage naturalistic explanations of curious phenomena
679 B.C.E.
Shen Xu is said to have taught that ghosts were just the products of fear were just the products of the fears and guilt of those who see them
Pages 181-188- HG
380 B.C.E.
Academy of Athens is founded
Mid-Fourth Century B.C.E.
Mencius finds his patron, the King of Wei, interested only in schemes to improve military efficiency. Also at the court of Wei, Hui Shi argues for negotiations with other states.
327-324 B.C.E.
Pyrrho of Elis accompanied with Alexander the Great’s invasion of India and imitated the indifference of the naked sages he met there.
The End of the Fourth Century B.C.E.
Epicurus and Zeno of Citium establish schools in Athens within of a few years of each other
270 B.C.E.
The Greek philosopher Epicurus dies
Mid-Third Century B.C.E.
The prince of Zhao allegedly had 1000 scholars at his court, and intellectual wars spread throughout states in both China and India.
First Century C.E.
Roman Writer Sextus Empiricus suggests that, like a modern Marxist, that “some shrewd man invented fear of gods” as a means of social control.
ID Terms
1. Axial Age (roughly 700 B.C.E. through 100 C.E.) TK
a. Armesto states that this image suits this period of intellectual growth for three reasons.
1. The areas in which the thought of the sages and their schools stretches across Eurasia in an axislike pattern, through regions that influenced each other, more or less.
2. The thoughts of the period have remained central to so much later thought all over the world.
3. Why did this period of concentrated thought occur at all?
b. The significance of the term axial age is that it gives us an idea of where the major thinking occured (axislike image) and how important it was (and is) for many different philosophies.
2. Zoroaster/Zoroastrianism TK
1. Zoroaster founds religion known as Zoroastrianism between the late seventh and early sixth centuries B.C.E.
a. Main gods are Ahura Mazda and Ahriman
1. Ahura Mazda was the good god, present in light and fire
2. Ahriman was the bad god, present in night and darkness
b. Dualist philosophy- idea of good versus evil, right versus wrong (deals in absolutes, no grey area)
3. Brahmanism (Hinduism) TK
1. Originates from the Upanishads around 1500 B.C.E.
a. Belief in Brahman, the essence of the universe
4. Jainism/Vardhamana Jnatrputra TK
1. Vardhamana Jnatrputra (the Mahariva) founds Jainism in the sixth to early fifth century B.C.E.
2. Believe in practicing asceticism in order to cleanse the soul of evil (we’re talking about extreme asceticism here)
a. So extreme to the point that a religious Jainist should not accept anything unless it is freely given (even food)
5. Buddhism TK
1. Founded by Gautama Siddharta (the Buddha) in the mid-500’s to early 400’s B.C.E.
2. Believe in escaping from desire- the cause of all unhappiness
a. Continue to be reborn until achieving a state of ‘nirvana,’ meaning extinction of the flame (the flame being desire)
1. This is achieved through prayer, meditation, and unselfish behavior
b. People who achieve this are called Buddhas, the examples of perfection that Buddhists strive for
6. Daoism - AL
- Laozi, the founder of Daoism, lived probably around 300 B.C.E. in China. (Pg. 165)
- Doaists probably began practical science – observation, description, classification, and experiment - in China. Evidence to support this claim is that Doaists used a word for temple that is translated to mean watchtower. A watchtower is a platform where they observed the natural world and launched naturalistic explanations of it phenomena. Daoism also believes that nature needs to be either tamed or dominated like a beast or a foe. (Pg. 178-179)
7. Jewish People – AL
- Levant, southwest Asia’s Mediterranean costal region, was inhabited by Jews and was a war zone. (Pg. 166)
- There are challenges of using biblical and archaeological sources because the biblical accounts and Jewish writings do not always match with archaeological investigations, so none of the accounts can be confirmed as 100% true or false. (Pg. 166)
- The kingdoms of Judah and Israel from around 700 B.C.E. fought each other and fell because of the wars of neighboring empires. (Pg. 166)
- Many were deported and forced to migrate to Babylon after Jerusalem fell in the 580s B.C.E. Those deported felt defeat and loss. (pg. 166)
- From 600-400 B.C.E. the Jews wrote the Old/Hebrew Testament because they were inspired to reevaluate their relationship with God. (Pg. 166)
- Through a covenant, God promised deliverance, if not in this life, then in the afterlife, or at the end of history, or, at best, in a remoter future, as a reward for present fidelity, or following “the Law.” (Pg. 166)
8. Christianity – AL
- Jesus, a Jew who died around 33 C.E., was a great Jewish Rabbi with a radical message. (Pg. 166-167)
- There are challenges of reconstructing Jesus’ life because not all accounts written during his time match archaeological findings. Also, the gospels in the bible do not all tell the same story of Jesus. In addition, there are gaps in Jesus’ life in written records that make it hard to reconstruct his life.
- Jesus’ followers gave him the name of Christ, resembling the meaning of Messiah, which means “the anointed”. “The anointed” designated the king the Jews hoped for at the end of history to bring heaven to earth. (Pg. 167)
- Jesus taught to love one another and he did so by welcoming prostitutes, tax collectors, “sinners,” people from Samaria, and the weak. (Pg. 174)
- Roman authorities did not agree with Jesus’ thought that to love one another was the only important law, and as a result they put him to death. (Pg. 174)
9. Greek Philosophy and Belief Systems – AL
- Aristotle was a physician’s son from northern Greece in 300 B.C.E. who left a body of work on science, logic, and politics. (Pg. 167) Aristotle believed in common sense and reasoning, we owe our ability to think to him. (Pg. 177)
- Plato, Aristotle’s teacher, lived in 300 B.C.E. (Pg. 167) He believed that our senses deceive through his allegory of the cave, The Republic, because the people in the cave could only see their shadows, he wondered how could they see out of the cave (to form mathematics, reason, and science). (Pg. 175)
- Plato believed that political power should be concentrated in self-electing class of rulers, also known as Guardians who had intellectual superiority. Plato said, “There will be no end to the troubles of state, or indeed, of humanity until philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers” which enforces his belief for intellectual superiority in positions of leadership. (Pg. 172)
10. Axial Age Creation Beliefs – AL
- Before the axial age, people did not focus on creation, but how the universe can to be the way it is. However, once the axial age began, people embraced the idea of a creator who always existed but made everything out of nothing. (Pg. 168-169)
11. Axial Age Concepts of Monotheism SR
The idea of a unique God. Monotheism religions include Judaism and Christianity.
12. Axial Age Concept of Divine Love SR
Making God’s love embrace all humans. Creation became an act of love consistent with God’s nature. This raised the question “Why does a loving God permit evil and suffering?”
13. Legalism/Legalists SR
-Political Pessimism: For pessimists, the way to overcome human dificiencies was to strengthen the state. The key idea was that political power should be concentrated in a self-electing class of philosopher rulers called Gaurdians. The belief that ethics should override obedience to the law. What the law said was really irrelevant, all that really mattered was that it should be obeyed.
-Political Optimism: They thought that human nature was essentially good, and that to serve rulers or support society was an inescapable duty, it was not the purpose of life.
14. Confucianism/Confucious and Mencius SR
Confucianism/Confucius and Mencius: Confucius deterred followers from thinking “about the dead until you know the living” and defined wisdom as aloof respect for gods and demons. Confusions professed interests in human affairs and indifference to the rest of nature.
15. Aristotle/Syllogisms SR
Syllogisms: Aristotle said that we can break valid arguments down into phases, called syllogisms, in which we can infer a necessary conclusion from 2 premises that prior demonstration or agreement have established to be true.
16. Pythagoras SR
The idea that numbers are real. He said that musical harmonies can be expressed as arithmetical ratios and that consistent ratios characterize the lengths of the sides of right-angle triangles.
17. Thracians- Thrace was located in the Aegean Sea, northeast of Greece. they wrote on odd materials such as mushrooms. Their writing has been indecipherable even though it was written in Greek letters. They practiced rites of fire.
Horseback hero/god- his figure dominated Thracian art, in many examples he is performing heroic/ dangerous tasks: wrestling three-headed monsters, leading a bear, and in the midst of a battle surrounded by severed heads. These figures were saved because Christians would recycle them and use them in their building materials for churches
Sitalkes- (429 BCE) Thracian King who invaded Macedonia with an army of 150,000. There he built a palace-city 21.5 acres in size. Made from mostly mud-brick and stucco. He marked a new era in which Thracian states struggled with their stronger neighbors.
18. Illyrians and Garamantes- Located on opposite sides of the central Mediterranean.
Illyrians- (500 BCE) Buried their rulers and elites with hoards of gold and silver and sacrifices of oxen and wild boar. An urn found in modern-day Slovenia is illustrated with images of life in an Illyrian court. Parading warriors, deer hunters, dignitaries being fed by long-haired women.
Garamantes- modern-day North African region of Lybia called Fezzan. They dug irrigation tunnels under the Sahara desert, their 14 cities were surrounded by desert. They grew wheat and barley. Called by the Greeks, a slave-trading elite, driving four-horse chariots. their faces depicted by the Romans as ritually tattooed and scarred with ostrich-plume helmets.
19. Etruscans- Etruria was located on the northern shore of the Mediterranean stretching across central Italy. Their soil had to be plowed nine times to be workable, which caused for a need of iron mining and the most cutting-edge smelting technology. They drained malarial marshes. The Etruscans were looked down upon by the Greek and Romans because they believed that the Etruscans took too much time on their appearance and wantonly displaying their bodies.
Ceare- Etruscan city, covered 150 acres and accommodated 20,000 inhabitants. Their tombs resembled the layout of their houses, as if to prepare the deceased for the afterlife. Warriors buried with chariots and weapons, and the wealthy with jewels and precious metals.
Gender roles and women’s rights- Women were allowed to go out to games, and dine with men, in Greek and Roman societies the only women who did that were prostitutes. Elite women were also thought to be literate due to writing on combs and mirrors.
Chapter 6 Outline
(1) The Thoughts of the Axial Age- EE
a) Helps to compare and contrast- thematic approach
II) Religious Thinking
a) Creation
i) The idea of nothing enabled thinkers to understand the order of nature in a new way.
ii) Before the Axial Age- creation narratives- telling of how the world came to be.
iii) Leucippus- devised the atomic theory
(1) Plato’s god did not start from nothing just rearranged what was already there.
iv) Jews= most challenging account of creation
(1) Idea that the creator has always been there
(2) Yet created the world out of nothing
b) Monotheism
i) Idea of a unique god, who monopolizes power over nature
ii) Most powerful formula developed= Jews
(1) “Yahweh” is the one G-d. (Umm… we don’t actually call our god Yahweh, to us the one and only G-d is Adonai or Hashem.)
(2) Jews were not obligated to impose Yahweh on others.
iii) Muhammad studied Judaism and Christianity and incorporated the Jewish understanding of G-d in Islam.
c) Divine Love
i) Aristotle sees a god figure as a perfect being
ii) Brahmanism is illusory
iii) Greek is divine
iv) Confucianism is neutral
v) Zoroastrianism is evil
vi) Christianity is good
vii) Buddhism is transient
III) New Political Thinking
i) Believed that the humankind was originally a grim swamp of violence-Xunzi
b) Political Pessimism
i) To overcome human deficiencies was to strengthen the state.
ii) Political power should be concentrated in self-electing class of philosopher-rulers called Guardians.
iii) Chinese counterparts exceeded the severity of Plato’s thinking
iv) Legalist- made virtues
c) Political Optimism
i) Human nature was good
ii) Political doctrines of Confucianism, which demanded that the state should liberate subjects to fulfill their potential.
iii) Greek sages-entrusted citizens with a voice in affairs of state, no matter education states.
iv) Serving was a duty
v) Jesus believed in loving one another
IV) Challenging Illusion
a) There was a struggle against illusion
b) People turn to skepticism- mistrust of all human capacity to achieve more than practical happiness.
V) Math
a) Indian sages discover numbers- in a genuinely limitless universe
b) Jain see how difficult it is to attain the infinite
c) Saw pi as 22/7
d) Golden Number= 1.618
e) Greece= Pythagoras- harmonies can be expressed as arithmetical ratios; and that consistent ratios characterize the lengths of the sides of right angled triangles.
I. Science- CH
A. Axial age led to science
B. Lu Shi Chong Qiu of third century B.C.E. discovered how to make soft metals harder, make liquids dryer, and how to make poisonous herbs into medicines
C. Science was sacred and medicine was “magical”
D. Shen Xu show first sign of clear evidence of shift of thinking; taught that ghosts were just the products of the fears and guilt of those who see them
E. Superstition: Inaminate substances have feelings and wills, inhabit all matter, and natural world is responsive to human sin and goodness
F. “Natural” causes displaced magic
G. Greeks believed in the supernatural
H. Late sixth century B.C.E. Greeks began to use observed data to speculate about the material nature of the universe, rather than magic
I. Other Greek thinkers such as: Aristotle, Archimedes, and Eratosthenes came up with reasons why events happen and how our earth is calculated
J. Daoism- reputation for magical mumbo-jumbo because priests practice strange ceremonies. Also encouraged the beginning of scientific practice.
II. Medicine
A. “Demons” are usually associated with any type of illness
B. Charms and drugs were used to cure “demons” inside the body
C. Diet was also a big part in the curings of diseases in the Greek Hippocratics text
III. Skepticism
A. Suspicion that the world is purposeless
B. World is merely but a random event
C. People are like fleas: when they buzz in your ear you do not hear them, God cannot hear humans
D. Stoicism practiced that nature is morally neutral- only human acts are good or evil
IV. Structures of the Axial Age
A. Professional intellectuals sold their services to people in search of happiness
B. Some professionals sought the patronage of rulers or positions as political advisors
C. A third category consisted of prophets or holy men who emerged from ascetic lives with inspired messages for society
D. A fourth was composed of charismatic leaders with visions to share with and impose on other peoples
E. Most sages and thinkers were a part of a network. They dd not sit an isolation although many of them preferred it.
F. Networks promoted innovation and competition towards being greater and fertilizing more ideas
G. Masters and pupils contributed to revisions from generation to generation. Made new outlooks and perspectives
V. The Reach of the Sages
A. Trade and Colonization took axial-age thinking even further
B. We, today, still follow axial-age sages in religion and the same logic and science they used many centuries ago
Chapter 6 Chronology
Pages 159-170- MA
Pages 171-180- PB
Pages 181-188- HG